he muttered.
“What are we going to do?” Blossom whimpered.
“Rorff!”
Max looked at Fang thoughtfully, then said, “It might work.” To Blossom, he said, “Give me your lipstick,”
She pawed in her purse. “What for?”
“Just watch.”
Max opened the tube of lipstick that Blossom gave him, then wrote HELP! on the car window.
Next, he rapped on the window again, trying to get the attention of a passerby.
A beatnik stopped, stared for a second at the writing, then applauded. But after that he simply walked on.
“Didn’t get through to him,” Max said. He knocked with his knuckles on the window again.
A girl beatnik heard and paused. She squinted at the wording, then moved to the car. But she didn’t open the door. She held a small card up to the window.
Max read the words on it. “Life is the ultimate psychodrama.”
Max applauded.
The girl curtsied, then walked on.
“This isn’t helping at all,” Blossom complained.
“Well, we’re meeting some interesting people.”
“We’ll suffocate in here!”
“Look on the bright side,” Max said. “A lot of poor souls suffocate, and never meet any interesting people.”
“Can’t they understand what HELP! means?”
“Apparently it isn’t in the beatnik vocabulary,” Max said. “We’ll have to try something else.” He looked around. “I wonder if this car is equipped with a telephone.”
“What good would that do?”
“Well… see that telephone booth over there? Right near the coffee house? We could ring that booth, and when somebody answered, we could get him to come over here and let us out.”
Blossom began helping him search for a telephone.
“Rorff!” Fang barked.
“That’s right!” Max said.
“What did he say?”
“He reminded me that I’m standing on a telephone.”
Blossom looked at him warily.
“My shoe,” Max explained. “It’s a telephone.”
Blossom clapped her hands to her cheeks in panic. “You’re going out of your mind!”
“I’m going to get us out of here, that’s where I’m going,” Max said, removing his shoe.
Blossom screamed.
“Quiet! I’m on the phone!”
Max: Hello… Operator? I’d appreciate a little assistance. You see, I’m trapped in a limousine in Greenwich Village, and I’d like you to ring that telephone booth over there. My hope is that someone will answer it and then come and get us out of here.
Operator: I beg your pardon, sir. We must have a bad connection. I thought you said you were trapped in a limousine in Greenwich Village.
Max: Operator, the fate of the entire civilized world depends on this, so, if you don’t mind, I’ll just skip the explanation. All I want you to do is ring that phone booth.
Operator: Is it a bell?
Max: I don’t think I get that.
Operator: You asked me to ring it. Is it a bell?
Max: That’s very funny, Miss. But, if it’s just the same to you, could we dispense with the humor? Would you please just ring that phone booth?
Operator: The phone booth… Which one? We have quite a few, you know. At least three.
Max: The one by the coffee shop. (Pointing) Right over there. The one with the man standing, leaning against it. As a matter of fact, he may be able to- Excuse me, Operator. There’s someone knocking at my window. Hold on.
Max lowered his shoe and turned toward the policeman who had rapped on the window of the car. He shouted out to him. “Yes? What is it, officer?”
The policeman answered. But he could not be heard inside the car.
“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” Blossom said.
“Wouldn’t you know it? Here I am, right in the middle of an emergency, trying to get someone to come over here, and that cop has to stand out there asking questions.” Again, he shouted out to the officer. “I’m sorry… I’m on the phone. Come back later!”
But the policeman didn’t go away. Instead, he opened the car door.
“I couldn’t hear a word,” the policeman said.
“I said, I’m on the phone!” Max yelled.
“You don’t have to shout. I can hear you now.”
“Oh… yes.”
“You’re on what phone?” the policeman said.
Max waggled the shoe. “This phone. And if you want to talk to your mother in Brooklyn, I’m sorry, but I’m in the midst of an emergency.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t want to bother you,” the policeman said. “I’ve just got one question. I got a call from headquarters. There’s some nut down here that’s calling the telephone company and saying he’s trapped in a limousine. I just wondered if you’d seen anybody like that. The operator is stalling the fella, and she’s traced the call to this vicinity.”
Max stared blankly at the policeman for a moment. Then he looked at Blossom, then at Fang, then back to the policeman. “I haven’t seen him,” he said.
“All right. Thanks for your cooperation.” He started to close the door.
“You can leave it open, officer,” Max said.
“Whatever you say.”
The policeman strolled on, looking this way and that for a lunatic trapped in a limousine.
Max spoke into his shoe again.
Max: Operator, I don’t think that was very nice of you.
Operator: I’m sorry. I heard what you said to the policeman, and I apologize. But it did sound a little crazy. Do you still want me to ring that telephone booth?
Max (smirking): Ring the telephone booth?
Operator: Yes.
Max: What do you think it is-a bell?
Operator: Yes, sir. All our telephones are Bell’s.
Max hung up his shoe.
“If there’s anything I can’t stand,” he muttered, “it’s a smart telephone operator.”
Max, Blossom and Fang climbed out of the car. Max slammed the door.
Glancing back, Blossom said, “So that’s why!”
“Why what?”
“Why nobody paid any attention to that message for help you wrote on the glass.”
Max looked. In lipstick on the car window he saw written:! PLEH
“Still… you’d think one of those beatniks would have understood it,” he mused. “Oh, well… another lesson learned. In every manner and every way, we grow smarter and smarter, day by day.”
A few seconds later, the trio entered the coffee house, the Idyll Hour.
“Before we continue the search for Fred,” Max explained, “I want to find Boris. There are a lot of sharpies
